UK BUSINESS Minister Paul Scully has said he feels the Prime Minister upholds the highest standards required of his office.
This comes despite the resignation of ethics adviser Lord Geidt.
Scully also added that he would feel comfortable without an ethics adviser so long as there is a suitable “mechanism” in place to maintain standards.
When asked whether he could say that Boris Johnson upheld high standards, Scully told Sky News: “Yes, I can.
“I think Lord Geidt seems to have resigned on the discussion around when the Prime Minister asked him for advice for supporting industries in the next few months.”
He added: “In terms of the Prime Minister’s behaviour, he rightly wants to draw a line under the so called partygate because people are worried more about the cost of living, what it’s going to mean for their mortgages and their bills in the days and months ahead.”
When asked whether he would be comfortable if no-one is hired to replace Lord Geidt as adviser on ministerial standards, Scully said: “I think I would be comfortable with that as long as there is a mechanism that (ensures) the Prime Minister and that me as minister are held to the highest standards.
“There is a ministerial code there and we want to make sure that it’s adhered to, because it (enshrines) the principles that we all stand on, not just as MPs when we first come into the House, but when we accept office as ministers.”
Meanwhile, the Government’s former anti-corruption champion John Penrose urged ministers not to “leave really quite damaging questions dangling” by not replacing Lord Geidt.
When asked about Geidt’s work, such as the investigation into the Downing Street flat, the Conservative MP for Weston-Super-Mare told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think one of the reasons why it’s important to have some continuity, why it’s important to have if not a precise replacement then an effective succession here is to make sure that you don’t leave really quite damaging questions dangling and that anything that’s outstanding doesn’t just get forgotten and lost.”
He said of the report into the flat: “I don’t know how complete it is, I don’t know whether or not there’s anything that still remains to be done on it or whether or not it’s just sitting on a shelf and waiting to be published.
“But I think the important thing with all of these issues is they don’t go away if you just ignore them. Ethics and integrity doesn’t work like that, and therefore they will have to put this stuff to bed or the only way to draw a line under these things, frankly, is to get it out in the open and then people can understand and move on.”
“This is so typical of this Government when faced with any questions about this Prime Minister's short comings or impropriety.
"Simply put their fingers in their ears or abolish and disband the people who are inconvenient or may hold them to account.
“The whole idea of an ethics advisor to this particular Prime Minister is almost an absurd proposition anyway when he has the morals of Caligula bereft of a moral compass.
"The only person who should be disbanded is this Prime Minister himself."
